How to Shoot Yourself : A Guide

From Redding.com: After year-ago dispute, Redding home to be in foreclosure sale.

It's been nearly a year since an east Redding home was auctioned off for $375,000, then taken back by the seller after the deal was voided, the result of a legal dispute.

At one time, owner Don Shearing asked $719,000 for the 2767 Vermeer Place house.

The home was built in 2003 on a lot that sold for $75,000.

So with much fanfare, Shearing and Pacific Auction Exchange, a Redding franchise that he owns, hosted a June 15 auction -- it wasn't a foreclosure sale -- that saw Ken and Jason Jones nab the home for $375,000.

But Shearing hired a lawyer and ultimately took the house back about a month later after both sides came to an agreement.

Now the nearly 3,000-square-foot home with a pool on Vermeer Place in Carriage Glenn Estates is on the brink of being lost to foreclosure.

A notice was posted last week for a May 13 public sale, at which time the three-bedroom, three-bath home will be auctioned off on the Shasta County Courthouse steps. Balance due on the note is $333,373.

The EE has a puny mind, and can't always detangle the thickets of the average reporter's mind. Let us reconstruct the above in a logical sequential way. These seem to be the facts:

The home was originally listed for $719K, and there were no bids.

Then the home was auctioned for $375K which would've netted you somewhere between $42K and $300K.

Instead, you sued the winners of the auction, paid the lawyer's fees, and you won. You won all right. You showed those miserable cowpokes who was boss.

Then, you relisted, got no bidders, and went into foreclosure instead.

What can the EE say?

Greed, arrogance, and stupidity are a deadly combo, yes?

The R Word - Liberal Style

Me and You and Everyone We Know

From Utah: Home sales plunging in Utah.

He said the glut of homes built by speculators is also a contributing factor, "and now it's hurting everybody," he said.

Not everybody.

Just the speculators. And the home debtors. And the over-leveraged people. And the six-percenters. And the knife catchers.

Not everyone though.

Full Support?

From Vogue: Hard times ahead as porn goes soft?

Economists are citing some dire portents of a recession these days, but they've missed one indicator I find especially disturbing: The porn business has suddenly gone flaccid.

The drop in porn rentals and sales is worrisome on several fronts: Till now, porn has been a recession-proof business. Further, with the country already in a dispirited mood, the fact that porn has gone limp may indicate a true plunge in consumer confidence.

C'mon, folks! Help support the US economy.

Boudoirs are soooooooooo 19th century!

From the Rocky Mountain News: '07 Parade fails to make a sale.

Everyone loves a parade.

But maybe not so much if you were one of the five builders in the 2007 Parade of Homes.

The "parade," which featured five display homes in the $2 million range in Southshore near Aurora Reservoir, illustrates the plight of the struggling, upper-end market in the suburbs.

More than six months after the end of the parade on Labor Day, none of the five homes has sold. One is in foreclosure. Another is expected to end up there after its builder dissolved his construction company.

The home, which features a "woman's getaway space - a place for solitude, renaissance and peace," according to advertisement literature, is on the market for $1.825 million.

That must be where they "entertain", Biff, the hunky personal trainer.

Wayde Jester, consulting director for Metrostudy, a Houston- based realty-research firm that has been tracking the Denver area for seven years, said the problem "may be one of simple supply and demand. There's been a lot of building out there. If someone wants to invest $2 million in a home, it might not be southeast Aurora for most people."

You don't say?!?

Eurodollar Positions

Floating around trading desks on Wall St. The EE has received too many emails with this!

Soon to be reversed. It's called flip-flopping.

The Circle of Life

Sunday Schadenfreude

When the EE was a little boy, there would be a weekly radio program of songs on Sunday evening.

In honor of that, we present SUNDAY SCHADENFREUDE.

Since this is like radio, you need to click each video in order to appreciate the linearity of the presentation.

First, from Florida: Did appraisers juice Florida real-estate market?.

Appraisers so commonly pumped up house values to meet demands of developers, real-estate agents and lenders that complaints against them tripled in Florida in recent years -- the largest complaint increase for any profession regulated by the state.

Cheryl Oliphant of Santa Monica, Calif., bought a house that lenders shopped to appraisers as being worth $550,000. The registered nurse now thinks the appraisal was inflated.

A novice real-estate investor, Oliphant said she used her retirement savings and bought at the top of the market, thinking she had a great deal and instant equity in the house because it appraised for $50,000 more than the $450,000 sales price.

Oliphant has been trying to sell the house at a $100,000 loss and plans to file for bankruptcy, losing her $50,000 down payment. She said she might ultimately have to abandon that house and four others she bought in Florida.


From LA: Many areas are becoming ghost towns as families foreclose.

David Day's house-flipping strategy flopped and now he's fighting for his financial life.

Like so many others, he'll likely lose.

Day and his family are on foreclosure's doorstep, struggling to make mortgage payments totaling $6,240 a month.

"I haven't slept in five months. I wake up every morning in a cold sweat. I'm getting ready to go into bankruptcy," he said. "There is no money for food, basically."


From the Bay Area: Bay Area food stamp enrollment skyrockets.

Struggling with rising prices and a stalled economy, a growing number of Bay Area families are turning to food stamps.

In January alone, the county approved 1,743 applications — 3 percent more than during the same month in 2007.


Finally, a word from the patron saint of this blog, and our chief sponsor, hereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee's Mr. Ogden Nash:

Love is a word that is constantly heard
Hate is a word that is not
Love, I am told, is more precious than gold
Love, I have heard, is hot

But hate is the verb that to me is superb
And love, just a drug on the mart
For any kiddie from school can love like a fool
But hating, my boy, is an art.

Thank you, thank you, please tune in again next Sunday for our weekly roundup.

Lawdy, lawdy, lawdy

From Rich Toscano (freelance writer.)

He's overlaid the comments of RE cheerleaders with the Case-Shiller index for San Diego. The Internet sure seems to be shutting down their show.

Man, this is freakin' hilarious!!!

I love the smell of Credit Shrinkage in the morning...

H8 Release.

The Teensy Weensy Problem

From California: March worst month yet for housing market.

"We haven't hit the terrified phase yet," said Harris, the Oceanside mortgage broker. "The sellers are going through the seven stages of denial. ... Eventually, they will get to the stage where it's, 'Holy crap, I'm not going to be able to make this mortgage payment anymore.'"

F-art-ists!

From the BBC: France plans loans for art buyers.

The government says interest-free loans will be offered to "modest" buyers to purchase works and it is expanding incentives for companies to buy.

A survey out this week showed that, for the first time, France had dropped from 3rd to 4th place behind China in sales of art works.

"There is a real need to act," explained French Culture Minister Christine Albanel.

No, there isn't!

Under the scheme, members of the public will be granted interest-free loans worth up to 10,000 euros ($15,000, £8,000).

Yeah, this will really change the landscape. Really.

Lord knows, the EE is a fan of modern art, and lord knows, a little patronage never hurt anyone but are you freakin' telling me that these amounts change anything?

Anyone who is in a position to fork out real dough for art doesn't need a loan. Period.

This shouldn't come as a freakin' revelation, least of all to the Minister of Culture!

In any case, loans will not make the French art world "better", whatever such a term can possibly mean in the arts anyway. Either the buyers want the stuff, or they don't, and the loans for such miniscule amounts matter not a whit.

Boring. Next!

Food Stamps

Giving Up

With all the changed proposals and laws, I give up. I've just signed a contract for a condo in my neighborhood with an Option-ARM.